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That is ridiculously depressing. I think Buck is being a little presumptuous about knowing Dirk.
Edit: Sorry, wrong forum. Please move.
Babe in Dallas: Life of Nowitzki
Buck Harvey
Everyone else was still screaming. Some were pulling on each other, and Mark Cuban was pushing a camera out of the way. None of the Mavericks would feel better when the NBA later admitted a mistake had been made.
While all of this was going on Saturday, Dirk Nowitzki walked off by himself.
He's been doing this too much.
He would tell reporters in Dallas that Saturday's loss was “about as tough” as any he's experienced. That's something considering his Finals collapse in 2006.
He missed his last five shots against the Nuggets. Still, he held up his end, with 33 points and 16 rebounds, and afterward he addressed the media with his usual calm.
He did two years ago, too, when he was bounced from the first round as the MVP. He heard criticism — most of it harsh — and took it as David Robinson once did. That's why a lot of people who know him, like him.
But Nowitzki was groomed for this. He would be an international star, and he would channel his energies in one direction. Basketball.
He went from high school to the German army to the NBA draft. He was a Maverick five days after his 20th birthday, and he packed a towel for his first trip to Dallas. According to a story in the Dallas Morning News, he wasn't sure a towel would be provided at the home of the Mavericks' coach at the time, Don Nelson.
A year later he still acted like a kid at summer camp. He slept catty-corner on a twin bed in his apartment, with a stack of unpaid bills and uncashed checks in the corner. He would get some assistance eventually, and he would upgrade to a Dallas mansion.
Still, he kept exercise equipment in his den, because that's what he knew. Just two years ago someone had to show him how to tie a tie.
He often dined with staff when on the road. And two years ago, without a wife or a girlfriend, he was asked by a reporter if he had plans for the future.
“Obviously I don't want to be a 40- or 45-year-old (new) dad,” he said. “So I'm sure in the next five or six years, something's going to happen.”
Something happened, all right. Cristal Taylor is one of her names, and she has at least seven others. The depth of their relationship has yet to be clarified, but this is undeniable: She was taken from Nowitzki's home to the Dallas County Jail, and bail is at $20,000.
So how could this happen to Nowitzki, 30, who has played nearly a dozen years in the NBA? Because even the rich and famous can be clueless when sequestered from the population.
He's backpacked in Australia, and he's hung with Steve Nash. But he didn't have a social antenna. He didn't know people. He had been living in arenas in a foreign country, and according to reports, the Mavericks franchise was the one that wondered about Taylor.
According to others, franchise execs didn't mind sharing their information about Taylor with the media. They wanted to protect Nowitzki and, at the same time, make sure he understood Taylor.
Public humiliation would be part of this process for Nowitzki.
“It was a tough week for me and my family, but I stuck with it,” Nowitzki told the media after the loss Saturday. “If you go through tough times in your life, basketball is always an (escape). It's what we love to do, and I felt good out there.”
For him, “out there” is the court. He knows the basketball world better than any other, and he proved that again Saturday.
It's when he walks off, by himself, that he enters the unknown.
Last edited by duncan228; 05-09-2009 at 11:58 PM.
That is ridiculously depressing. I think Buck is being a little presumptuous about knowing Dirk.
Someone as good and well known as him deserve better
This writer dude, Buck Harvey, or whoever this guy is, is being a judgmental asshole.
“Obviously I don't want to be a 40- or 45-year-old (new) dad,” he said. “So I'm sure in the next five or six years, something's going to happen.”
And his le is a classless poke at Dirk's personal mistakes.
This is the same kind of condescension he had with a Lebron, for not having the same personality as Tim Duncan, and decided to use that as an excuse to thumb his nose at him, a few weeks back.
Public humiliation would be part of this process for Nowitzki.Is he Dirk's father?? Surely he knows what will help Dirk grow as a person since he's got Dirk all figured out with conclusiveness. He doesn't know the whole story about Dirk, so he should STFU as a professional. What a prick.For him, “out there” is the court. He knows the basketball world better than any other, and he proved that again Saturday.
It's when he walks off, by himself, that he enters the unknown.
You guys must be reading a different article than me. I thought it was a pretty sympathetic article. It sounds like he's what we used to call a "gym rat". I don't think there is anything at all insulting about that. Guys like that aren't real sophisticated socially, but they aren't jaded either. I actually feel more sorry for they guy after reading it.
+1
I thought the article was more about the trappings of the N.B.A. What really cracks me up about this mess is all the radio sports personalities making fun of this girl when more than half of them are married to the ugliest,fattest women.
So if i get this right.... she is a golddigger who already tried to pull this off in many other places with many other celebrities?
I feel sorry for Dirk. Hes a great basketball player, isnt an asshole, plays clean, ect.. He got bamboozled by some tramp and now hes learning the hard way, like most of us slobs do when we were 21 or so (and with a lot smaller bankroll).
I find this to be rather presumptuous. Actually this can happen to just about anyone. Ask the clients of Bernie Madoff.So how could this happen to Nowitzki, 30, who has played nearly a dozen years in the NBA? Because even the rich and famous can be clueless when sequestered from the population.
Thats exactly why I couldn't make fun of him because like you said most people who are cracking on him for going out with this girl probably have been out or screwed an ugly,fat girl atleast once in their lives. He made a mistake but come one now most NBA players have ugly ass wives except for Euros. Case and point look at Dwades ex-wife or Lebron's girl.
its just hard for me to feel sorry for multimillionaire star athlete celebrities.
+2.
I got the same vibe from reading the piece. I sort of feel sorry for him too because, while he is an international superstar, it's obvious he's been socially sheltered. Dude is just a real nice guy, who obviously got taken in by a very street-smart girl, who has a long history of fraudelent behavior. Sure, as a celebrity, he should've have been more skeptical and less trusting, but that's not who he is.
I do give Dirk credit for swiftly putting the "wheels in motion" toward getting the chick removed from his home and his life, once his team discovered just how much of a fraud she really was.
Pepole forget that it's very easy for tourists and foreigners, who reside in other countries, to be susceptible to con artists. And it doesn't just happen to folks living outside their native country. It happens to athletes more often than we know. In the past 2-3 years, both Josh Howard and Jason Terry recently were victims of fraudelent behavior. Howard was led to believe a girl he was seeing was giving birth to his son. He even missed a game for the birth and was seen passing out cigars in celebration of the birth. It turns out post-birth DNA tests proved Howard WAS NOT the father. He was crushed. Meanwhile, Terry was the victim of theft when a former in-house personal chef got hold of his some of his check and began siphoning money from his bank account.
Because money solves all your problems.
It solves some, I'll say.
He begs to differ.
I'm sympathetic to Dirk; I can only imagine the difficulties of adapting to a new country, language, and culture (which he did long ago) and having to do those things after what was probably a childhood that didn't involve a substantial amount of social interaction. Dirk has worked his way into being this wunderkind and my guess would be that the work that it took to become one of the 100 or so best basketball players ever left him without the social scars of teenage years that tend to make us socially-aware and deprive us of at least some of our naďveté. Add to the mix more money than most people could actually imagine and you've got a ready-made target for those who take advantage of others.
Whether that's what happened to Dirk or whether he was plenty sophisticated but just willfully ignorant I don't know.
What I do know is that I actually find myself admiring Dirk more than I ever have in this postseason. He's handled team success with a pretty large degree of humility and he's handled team failure with a lot of class. It's a far cry from a few years ago, when he was throwing teammates under the bus. He's always been a tremendous basketball player, but he's (to me at least) evolved in the way that he does things off the court.
Biggie speaks da troof.He begs to differ.
Someone should have told Dirk that in America we don't knock up our hookers. That's why God invented condoms.
That's just wrong, but I laughed my ass off. That should be in the literature they give out in the orientation week for new players.
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